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What’s It Like To Be is a regular online column in which New Zealanders from all walks of life share first-hand experiences. Here, Paulette Crowley hears from renowned NZ singer Debbie Harwood about how her ongoing battle with heart failure has proved a powerful motivator.
My heart problems first showed up as a murmur when I was quite young. I could hear it outside of my chest. My family could hear it, too. It was quite audible.
My nature is to be very energetic, so I loved being busy. I was an athlete at school but had no stamina. After an initial burst, I would tire and have to go to bed. It wasn’t addressed, just accepted.
As I got into my teenage years, I noticed that I had to sleep a lot more than other people. Because my spirit is so energised, I would push through fatigue all the time, but I would sleep as much as I could – sometimes for a few days.
By my late teens I had a full-time job and was singing for three nights a week in bars. In my 20s, I was touring with bands. I always pushed much harder than I probably could cope with physically. I never, ever sat down and watched the band load the gear; I just couldn’t have lived with myself if I didn’t help. I’m a working-class gal from Taradale (Napier). We just get on with it, you know?
I hardly ever stopped but when I did go down, I would go down hard. I remember coming back from tour and having to go to hospital for about a week. I was absolutely exhausted. They called it a physical breakdown – I had a lung infection and a bladder infection. They didn’t test my heart but, looking back, the crux of it was probably heart failure which also causes low immunity.
I developed severe asthma from singing in smoky venues and was in and out of hospital, but I carried on. In my early 30s I had my son, Marlon, and then got a gig singing and touring with Jimmy Barnes in Australia. I had another baby at 34 and that’s when I started to feel really compromised. I noticed my heart just wasn’t behaving properly. I could not only hear the murmur, I could feel my heart crashing around. Although I was in sinus rhythm, I had terrible, constant palpitations. I knew something wasn’t right but it wasn’t until my late 40s that I was diagnosed with a ruptured mitral valve.
I was on a waiting list for surgery but oxygen was becoming a problem so I was flown to Christchurch for urgent open-heart surgery. The operation was major – a long surgery to repair the valve plus, they found a hole and the heart was very distended by then. The surgeon told me it was very tricky to operate.
The day after the surgery, I went into atrial fibrillation (abnormal heart rhythm). They gave me a whole lot of really heavy drugs to try to keep it under control. I was alive but I felt terrible. They told me that most people who have heart surgery struggle with depression – the heart doesn’t like being handled. I was told, “It’ll take a year or two but you’ll come back.” But I didn’t come back. Something about the surgery knocked me and I’ve never felt the same again since.
In 2017, I went into full-blown heart failure. I could barely lift my arm to brush my teeth or walk! I was on the couch for over a year, and it stripped away any joy.
The silver lining of living with chronic illness is that it kicks you up the bum hard. I railed at myself for not recording more of my own music and for not going to Egypt, as I’d always wanted to.
After about a year of drug treatment, they got my heart function up from about 22% to about 35%. I wasn’t supposed to travel but I went to Egypt and gazed at the pyramids. I wrote and recorded five songs. I doubt I would have done that without chronic illness.
Heart failure is diagnosed on a measure of heart function. It can’t be cured – you’re pretty much declining, either quickly or slowly, although it can plateau. In 2019, I was registered with Hospice New Zealand. The nurses there were beautiful humans and have a totally different view of life and death. The doctors are trying to pull you in: “You shouldn’t do this or that.” But the hospice nurses are open-armed and allowing. “Enjoy yourself, Deb [without exacerbating your symptoms, of course].”
And then something happened. You’re not supposed to improve with heart failure, but I just started to pick up in tiny increments. It was enough for me to get out of bed and stand up without the weight of oxygen debt. I’m not even sure what happened. Eventually I took myself off the hospice list.
About four months ago, I started a new medicine called Jardiance, which can help with diabetes and heart failure. Taking that has been life changing. Last weekend, I rehearsed up a new repertoire with my band. I haven’t been able to sing for a long time. To be able to sit with my beautiful band and feel the notes emerging from my body was pure bliss. I’ve started coming up with ideas again, planning things. I have an idea for a TV series and am writing a memoir.
I can now go to the gym and do a bit of leg strengthening. For ages, I couldn’t even get off my chair because my muscles had atrophied so much. The gratitude I have for this renewed spark of energy is monumental.
